The Fun Theory

November 6, 2009

The campaign The Fun Theory of Volkswagen is a series of experiments, captured on video, to find out if making the world more fun can improve people’s behavior. The video “Piano Stairs” has become a Youtube hit with more than 6 million views.

Their accompanying website, http://www.thefuntheory.com/, challenges the Swedish public to find their own evidence for the theory. For the prize of €2500, people are asked to submit written explanations along with some sort of visualization of the prototype (sketch, photograph, video), to prove that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior … the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better”.

It’s an interesting experiment! It has got people talking….and more importantly it’s got people talking about behaving more responsibly! Often, people tend to do the easiest thing, rather than the right thing. Volkswagen wanted to challenge this. Ultimately VW’s goal will be to get people to think about driving an environmentally friendly car. Previously the government introducing tax incentives has had little effect. What Volkswagen propose, is that if you introduce the ‘fun’ element, you can persuade people to do the ‘right thing’ a lot easier.

The experiment is seen in full light with the piano stair case, ”66% more people than normal chose the staircase over the escalator when ‘fun’ was reintroduced to staying active.” Something that started out as a local Swedish campaign has captured the imagination of the globe.